> India’s patrilineal traditions dictate that the eldest son care for his parents in old age and inherit property, while the dowries paid to marry off daughters can be expensive. The result is sex-selective abortion and an underinvestment in girls so common it has popularized a Hindi motto: “beti to bojh hoti hai,” meaning, “a daughter is a burden.”
This explanation has always been unsatisfying for me. At least it seems incomplete. The system is obviously unethical, but I don't understand how the economics work here.
If only the eldest son inherits, why are the the following sons valued? Given that the practice creates a surplus of unmarried men, shouldn't unmarried women become an asset instead of a liability? Shouldn't unmarried men be a huge force against the dowry system?
Cultural values define the economics here. The dowry is expected from women which ultimately end up with the groom once the bride leaves to live with the groom and his family.
The bride's side hence considers it a liability since there is a financial cost with no return.
The other sons are valued because they contribute to the work force. These sons will usually live under the same roof in a joint-family system.
> The bride's side hence considers it a liability since there is a financial cost with no return.
Right - so why do they pay dowry on top of that? It would make economic sense for them to accept a bride price to compensate for the investment. Especially when the femicide now has created an increased demand for unmarried women.
Is it just cultural inertia that overrides economics here?
Yup, it's just cultural inertia. You are trying to understand the situation's economics from a capitalist point of view, that the brides are "worth" something, and the investment the parents have put into their upbringing was "value" the bride's family put into the marriage, and they should be paid for that.
However, in the culture of India, the groom's family is doing the bride's family a favor by taking the bride off their hands, and undertaking caring for her for the rest of her life. Thus the bride family pays for this service. Usually the dowry is proportional to things like how undesirable the girl may be, how desirable the guy may be, the difference in social status between the parents, all favoring the guy.
Of course, the family itself thinks more along your lines -- "I have to spend money to raise her and take care of her, and then I have to spend an exorbitant amount more when she gets married as dowry," and thus end up resenting her existence from birth.
It's pretty silly, and is slowly fading away, but cultural inertia in a country as large and riveted in its ways as India is a force to be reckoned with.
Between the rapes, dowries, sexual harassment, and a general sense of misogyny: it must be really unfortunate to be born a female in India. I wonder how much of the blame rests on the deep-rooted cultural practices in the region vs the economic dynamics.
It really is unfortunate. The worst part is that as an Indian male (granted I grew up in the Middle East), I didn't realize my mom and the girls in the country were facing a 10x difficulty multiplier on their lives. And this is normal. Most of our males don't even realize how bad it is, even the educated, cultured, open-minded ones.
Let alone the men, even the women have to accept the misogyny and think it's only right that a woman must know how to cook above all else and be at home, listen to her husband when he curbs her career progression, etc.
I only began to understand when I went away to college. Hearing white people complaining about misogyny, and my first thought was "this is nothing!" and realized how much sadder it was that was what came to mind.
The problem is that a lot of the misogyny is defended by religion even, with women denied entry into temples (and by extension lots of solemn gatherings) if they're on their periods. Apparently because couple of thousand years ago women would make temple toilets messy and that was desecration of sacred grounds. Today my response is just "WTF?" when my mom still observes this when our family goes to a temple anywhere in the world, and doesn't enter.
Blame the british. In pre-colonial India women had extensive rights, including property rights. The dowry is exclusively controlled by her so that she can have economic independence if she needs it.
In post colonial india property rights were taken away from women so that the dowry was transformed from something to help your daughter to a payment to your son in law.
"Over 40 percent of those 5 and under are stunted — meaning they are in the bottom 2 to 3 percent of the worldwide height distribution for their age and sex"
Argh. It really bugs me when newspapers can't do simple arithmetic. Especially in the lead paragraph.
India is about 17-18% of the world's population. It has a slightly above average fertility rate, so it will have disproportionately more children. So about 20% of the world's children are Indian.
If 40% of Indian children are stunted, therefore, at least 8% of children worldwide must be stunted (not including Africa, China, etc.). 8% of children cannot be in the bottom 2-3% of the world's height distribution. That is not how statistics works.
If this obvious an error was put in the lead paragraph, how can we trust that the other facts are accurate?
Doesn't your question presuppose that the height distribution tables reset every year? If the height distribution is a fixed scale over time, then the bottom 3% of that distribution could easily account for far more than 3% of the children that are currently in that age range.
Late-ish Edit for Clarity: We don't weigh all the children every year to calculate new tables, we have enough data to figure out how much a 'normal' child should weigh. The percentiles are based on normal age / weight / height correlations and not their relative weight in the world's current sample of children.
The CDC and NCHS developed data that was adopted by WHO and then WFP.
> To determine a child's nutritional status,
you need to compare that child's status
with a reference for healthy children.
References are used to compare a child's
measurement(s) with the median for chil-
dren of the same sex and age for height-
for-age and weight-for-age, or to children
of the same sex and height for weight-for-
height. The internationally accepted reference was developed by the CDC and its
National Center for Health Statistics
(NCHS) using data collected from a popu-
lation of healthy children2.
> The World Health Organization (WHO)
adopted the NCHS reference curves for
international use. Evidence has shown
that the growth patterns of well-fed, healthy preschool children from diverse ethnic
backgrounds are similar and consequently
are applicable for children from all races
and ethnicities. These references are used
by agencies involved with nutritional
assessments and analysis, including WFP.
It seems like "worldwide height distribution for [healthy children of] their age and sex" would have been clearer phrasing. Either way, the ambiguity does not discredit the article's findings.
I'm not sure if this is the place for an anecdote, but here we go. And just to give a warning, this is from an American perspective.
I am the first born. My mother has told me that she would could the amount of protein she would get each day during her pregnancy with me. If she didn't get enough she would each more or drink a large glass of milk to try and supplement her diet. She didn't drink soda either.
With my younger brother she tried to make sure she ate enough protein, though she gave up not drinking soda.
With the youngest, my sister, she was working part time during her pregnancy and wasn't able to watch what she ate like with either me or my brother.
This all being said, we are no where near malnutrition. There is a considerable size difference between me and my siblings. I am 6'4" and have considerably larger bone structure than my siblings. (I'm not fat/obese/heavy. I only weigh 193 lbs.)
My brother is just a 6' and considerably smaller than I am. My sister is smaller than my brother and has a similar bone structure.
Might there be a biological imperative to ensure that the first born is healthy. Then with the later children parent lose the need to ensure their children are as healthy.
> My brother is just a 6' and considerably smaller than I am.
That is already very large, please don't interpret this as a sign that your brother is less healthy than you. If you are considerably larger than 182cm, then by some measures you'd be viewed as being less healthy than your siblings because you're prone to all the problems large people have.
It is very likely you all three maxed out the size range available to you genetically and epigenetically by receiving adequate nourishment, as is common in industrial nations.
> Might there be a biological imperative to ensure that the first born is healthy
Probably not as such, but the psychological effect you're describing might create that impression: first-time parents obsess about everything because they don't want to make any mistakes. With subsequent children they realize they've been overthinking everything and they consciously apply what they learned the first time, instead of indiscriminately following through on every little thing that comes to their minds (like giving up soda).
It's also a very first-world way of thinking about children.
> Then with the later children parent lose the need to ensure their children are as healthy.
Again, I think you're postulating purpose where none exists, because you see a correlation between your "better" health and the amount of attention your mom applied to arbitrary details when she was carrying you to term.
Instead, evidence suggests that increased survival pressure in humans leads to an increase in the amount of children a couple has, and attention to individual children (including first born) goes down drastically.
My own anecdotal impressions of wealthy industrial societies imply that while first-time parents sweat arbitrary details, it's really the last child a couple has that receives special attention. Partly because the parents have better skills, but probably also because they know it's the last chance "to do everything right".
I think this is interesting, so I am sharing my story. I am the first born son, and I have two younger brothers, 2.5 and 7 years apart respectively. My mother said she took extra care in what she ate when she was pregnant with me, but she didn't give up any of the junk food stuff. Soda, coke, fast food like McDonald's, cake, etc.
When she was pregnant with the second one. Realizing she might have made some mistakes with her diet, she cut out soda and coke from her diet and ate less fast food. Especially since she wanted a daughter this time.
With the youngest, she worked part time as well. It's also during that time we moved, and she didn't have much time to watch she ate either.
There is not much size difference between me and the older younger brother. He is taller and leaner than me though. I am 6'1 and 205 lbs, and he is 6'2 and 180 lbs.
The youngest one is supposedly still growing. (Technically males stop at 25 right?) But he has always been smaller comparing to us when we were the same age. He is 5'10 and 185 lbs currently.
I think prenatal definitely play a role in a child's development and later life. And it's not always the case that the first born gets the best.
I don't think this is a biological imperative at all, rather I think it's just that experienced parents worry less. The first child teaches them that they can mess up a bit and the kid will turn out just fine. The second kid teaches that even more. Each successive kid gets less obsessive care not for biological reasons, but because the parents have become more confident in their parenting and more aware of how indestructible little kids can be (obviously not literally, but humans are quite resilient).
Size was a great heuristic for health for the entire history of the world up until maybe 50 years ago. If everyone's growth is stunted some to malnutrition then the biggest people are the least malnourished.
It doesn't hold as much these days but it still "feels" right and useful.
Like many statistical tools, the height charts doctors use are gaussian distributions and the inferences drawn from where an individual falls on that distribution do not boil down to "bigger === better."
The South African Indian population has, apart from easily distinguished recent migrants, been in the country for 100+ years, and is relatively large (more than 1 million people). Due to apartheid, assimilation was limited, and the population was drawn from all over India. It would make an interesting comparison group, matched for socioeconomic status. If the pattern persisted in South Africa, then further research would be needed - South African Indians generally rely on pensions/savings to support them in old age.
Isn't this still a problem in the south too? The article clearly mentions its talking about India on average- Incidentally, the states you mentioned are also among the most populous. Most of the problems discussed do exist in the south as well although not to the same extent as the north. Only Kerala seems to be relatively less afflicted- with a favourable sex ratio, less absolute poverty and sanitation issues. Even in Kerala, the practices of dowry and favouring of sons is widely prevalent.
I, for one think the article is commendable in bringing new insight to problems facing us in India.
This is an interesting example of a market without speculators. Future demand will be high, but current demand is low, so production remains low. In a market with speculators this would lead to stockpiling in anticipation of price increases.
Devil's advocate, which is why I have this account: why is it not a gender equality issue that the sons are expected to care for their parents and not the daughters?
I'm not saying everything is hunky-dory in India. I'm saying that if someone thinks the fix is "Oh just apply Americanism in this particular aspect" then that someone is naive.
It is definitely a gender equality issue, but you have to understand that it's simply the other side of that same coin that is generally presented as "women are not equally respected in India". There is a universal correlation between responsibility and respect (and between responsibility and the share of resources that one receives), across all cultures, all organizations, etc. So if in a certain culture men / boys are given higher responsibilities, such as having to provide for their family, then they are automatically attributed more respect and a larger share of power and resources.
The answer, however naive and simplistic it may seem, is to distribute responsibility equally, for instance by expecting both genders to provide for their families. Respect cannot but follow. This is why giving women access to all kinds of jobs is a key issue.
It's not an ad hominem. "You're not an anthropologist, so what you said is wrong" would have been an ad hominem. The GP actually attacks the argument, although somewhat incompletely (to be polite).
EDIT: The authority is actually named, it's "anthropology".
1. No. There was no personal attack, and no fallacious reasoning from any personal attack. 2) An intellectual field is a very abstract form of authority, in this context.
1. Saying someone said something is a personal attack? Let me rephrase: "The textual information that became visible to me once the reply button was pressed on your computer" — or is my use of 'your' still out-of-bounds?
2. I didn't include enough detail in my post to actually conclude whether my appeal to authority is fallacious, since that entirely depends on in what manner I'm citing the authority. On the other hand, the post I responded to contained implicit appeals to supposed authoritative information ("There is a universal correlation...", emphasis mine) and the subsequent conclusions based on that authority.
I thought it was pretty self-evident that torpedoed your entire comment by claiming 'universal correlation' across all cultures and organizations—was any further response to that really necessary? You're throwing around gigantic assumptions that don't bear up under even the most minor investigation into the nature of power and respect cross-culturally.
Women are also expected to care for their parents in India, but the definition of 'parents' varies. If you're a widow and your husband dies, you will be required to take care of your in-laws for the rest of their lives, and this is often not very pretty.
If you are unmarried and thus, by most Indian standards, live at home, you will be required to take care of your aging parents exclusively (minus financial matters), which also is often not very pretty.
Sons are expected to take care of their parents in terms of spending money. Daughters are not b/c quite frankly, they do not have exclusive control of any money in this system. Instead they are expected to wait on them -- and the rest of the family -- by cleaning, cooking, etc.
The dowry system has already been illegal by law in India for 60 years but of course it is not well enforced. Secondly due to family dynamics, things are not equally divided as you might think. It maybe the oldest son that gets the property but another son who takes care of the parents. It maybe a daughter who is the caring one while the sons go of on their own.
Yeah it is. First, the bride paying for the wedding may be tradition, but it isn't absolute. In other words, in the United States, you won't see two people NOT get married because the wife's family can't afford a wedding. If your culture expects a dowry, what you can afford may influence who you are allowed to marry or whether a marriage can happen or not.
Second, the tradition of the bride's family paying in the U.S. has significantly lessened over the years. More young people pay for their own weddings or share the cost with their parents.
My parents's paid for the bulk of my small wedding (which despite being deliberately small and my hack of avoiding having to pay for the location, was still probably $20k once my dress, the reception, airfare/hotel for my parents and sister, flowers, photos and other assorted pre-wedding meals were dealt with -- weddings are just fucking expensive), and were happy to do it (and were happy they were able to do it), but if they would have been unable to cover the bill, my husband and I -- or his family -- would have stepped in, no questions asked. Like, it wasn't even a concern.
This explanation has always been unsatisfying for me. At least it seems incomplete. The system is obviously unethical, but I don't understand how the economics work here.
If only the eldest son inherits, why are the the following sons valued? Given that the practice creates a surplus of unmarried men, shouldn't unmarried women become an asset instead of a liability? Shouldn't unmarried men be a huge force against the dowry system?